Mass transfer characteristics of cross-corrugated membranes

It is known that the performance of membrane filtration depends on the coupling of mass transfer and fluid mechanics within membrane modules. The influence of cross corrugated membranes, and the orientation of flow to the angle of corrugation (90°, 45°, and 0°) on the mass transfer coefficients has been determined. Furthermore, the influence of viscosity, expressed in terms of Schmidt number, is also reported. It has been observed that the greatest mass transport improvement is reached with flow at an angle of 90o to the corrugated membrane. The correlation of the experimental data shows a flux enhancement, characteristic of a turbulent regime for Reynolds number conditions lower than 1500, rather than an equation for the laminar regime.

4.90E-05 Mass transport coefficients have been measured at the surface of two separate cross corrugated membranes, with different angles of liquid flow. The turbulence created by angles of either 90° and 0° was more important than that created by an angle of 45°. The study showed that an increase in the viscosity produced a decrease in the mass transport coefficient, at the same value of 3.90E-05 2.90E-05 Corrugation 90° 1.90E-05 Corrugation 0° 9.00E-06 5.00E+01 Corrugation 45° 3.50E+02 6.50E+02 9.50E+02 Re Fig. 3. Mass transfer coefficients for different angles of corrugation.